Filtered
by ASadisticWhim
Summary: Dean really hated letters from Sam. They never even said anything specific. Just: I'm sorry or please understand or I'll always be your brother. Teen!chester, pre-series, AU, Rated T for violence and dark themes, and language.
1. I'm Sorry

Authors Note: Oh my goodness. This came out dark, dark, dark. It's far darker than I ever originally planned. I don't know how that happened. The idea for Filtered spawned from my last story Redemption, thus why I'm labeling it AU. This is the first of three parts. I have no beta, so all mistakes are my own. Reviews are welcomed and well-loved.

Warnings: Teen!chester, pre-series, AU, Rated T/ NC-17, mentions of child abuse and molestation.

Disclaimer: If I owned these characters, I would no longer be in student debt. I'm just borrowing them.

Filtered

"_Dean hated letters from Sam. He had only gotten three letters from his brother in his entire life, but it was enough. If Sam left a letter for Dean, it meant Sam didn't plan on walking out in one piece, or Dean couldn't follow." ~ Redemption, Part Three_

1. I'm sorry

Sam was two hours late for dinner when the doorbell rang. Dean stopped glowering at the TV and dreaming about how many ways he was going to murder his younger brother to get up and answer it. A girl from Sam's class stood on the other side, shifting nervously from one foot to another as she looked around at the seedy motel. Dean didn't know her name, and really only recognized her because of the frizzy, bright red hair.

Her eyes widened when he opened the door. Dean could only imagine that he didn't look happy. She didn't say anything, just held out a white envelope. His name was written on the front of it in blue swirling, curling letters. It was unmistakably Sam's handwriting.

Dean's eyes narrowed, but he didn't take the note. "What's that?" He asked. Behind him, a laugh track from the TV echoed out the doorway.

The girl stuttered and stumbled over words for a minute, tucking red curly hair behind a pale ear, before finally spitting out: "Sam told me to give this to you." There was a lie in there. This girl was no friend of Sam's. The time Dean had seen her in the school yard, she had been sneering at his brother. Sam had shrugged him off when he'd asked about it, so he hadn't asked again.

"And why couldn't Sam give it to me himself?" Dean demanded, crossing his arms over his chest, knowing he was intimidating. He was only sixteen, but he was almost as tall as his father and had a good muscular build thanks to all the training his father insisted on.

The girl shrank back a bit, her shoulders hunching. "Because this is his last request," she said with a guilty cringe. Her eyes flicked around, first looking at the dying light beside the door, then at Dean's bare feet, then behind her to the silent, streetlamp lit parking lot. Then her nerve snapped into place. She gave an exaggerated sigh. "Look, will you just take it?"

The phrasing of 'last request' was still bouncing around in Dean's head when the girl flicked the envelope at his feet and turned to leave. He grabbed her arm, his hold tight enough to make her yelp. "I've done what I came here to do. What more do you want from me?" she asked, her voice terrified.

"I'd like to know where Sam is," Dean said, effortlessly holding her in place. He kept his voice low and hoped she didn't scream. The neighborhood wasn't a good one, but that didn't mean there weren't people who would call the cops.

The girl glared at him, slammed her heel down on his bare foot and knocked him over with a shove. He spit out a curse as she pulled away from him, his mind telling him to both stop the girl and rub his toes. The laugh track sounded again from the TV. "I don't know, okay?" the girl said, tears and fear mixing in her voice as she turned and ran. "I don't know, and I don't want to!"

The girl was gone into the darkness before Dean could get back on his feet, and he was left in the doorway of the motel and the parking lot breathing in cold December air. He watched the corner she had disappeared around for a moment, her words running through his head. She had sounded scared, but he didn't think he was the cause of it. The envelope sat on the freezing concrete beside him. With a sigh, he ripped it open. A single torn and muddy piece of paper was inside. In Sam's girly swirling writing it said: "I'm sorry."

What the hell did that mean?

Dean zipped up his jacket as he stuck the note to his father on the brown, stone-aged mini-fridge and shoved the tattered apology from his brother into his pocket. He could see his breath in the air as he headed out to the Impala.

Dean didn't know where his father was. John had dropped them off at the old, roach-infested, mold-encrusted motel in the middle of the city over a week ago. There had been a series of murders in the suburbs, and John suspected someone was dabbling in the occult. The targets had been teenagers, and John told Dean that keeping them in the city away from the case was better. Plus, teachers in cities asked fewer questions about absent parents. There was just too much going on in a city to save everyone.

So with his father gone, Bobby not picking up his phone, and anyone else Dean knew to call for help too far away to do any good, Dean figured he was on his own.

It was mid-December. It was dark, cold, and the roads were icy. At least it wasn't snowing. Dean didn't actually have his license yet even though he was finally old enough. He'd been driving since he was twelve, so he figured he'd pass if he ever took the test. John had supplied him with all the fake IDs he could ever need to pass as an adult after an emergency room trip that had made a few social worker's heads turn. Sam was a magnet for trouble.

Dean took a deep breath as he pulled the Impala up to the middle school where he had dropped Sam off that morning, his eyes scanning the groups of kids still hanging around. Sometimes Sam stayed and played with the soccer team even though he couldn't officially join. Dean let out his breath when his brother wasn't there, and continued on.

Sam wasn't at the library. Or at the coffee shop where the old grandmotherly woman often fed the brothers left-over treats that no one had bought. He wasn't at Blockbuster, and he wasn't at the used book store.

With each place that Sam failed to be, Dean's feeling of dread grew worse.

Sam was missing. Dean didn't really understand what was going on, but he was pretty sure his brother had been kidnapped. The idea sounded ridiculous, cliché; something that only happened in books or movies. Regardless, his brother had somehow gotten involved in something that would make him have a "last request". And Dean hadn't known about it. That irked him. He should have known what was going on. It added to his frustration.

Running out of places to search, he began just driving around, circling all the places his brother might know. Maybe Sam would be walking on the side of the road, all a big joke to get Dean back for the itching powder he had put in Sam's duffle bag. Dean was grasping at straws as he drove further and further out of the city, but it was all he had.

It was past dawn when Dean returned to the hotel. The brightness of the sun made his eyes sting, and the reek of alcohol made them water. His father was passed out in bed, the lime green comforter not doing much to contain the older man's snores, note on the mini-fridge apparently unread. Or read and forgotten about. Or read and uncared-for. Although Dean wouldn't let himself believe the last option. Their father loved them, wouldn't let anything happen to them if he could stop it. John probably hadn't read the note and thought that both Dean and Sam were at a movie.

Dean stepped closer to the bed, intending on waking his father up, telling him about Sam. Dean's gut dropped to his feet when he noticed a white envelope tucked in his father's hand. Pulling it from his father's grip, he looked at Sam's hand writing spelling out 'Dad', looked at the same message Dean himself had gotten on another torn, muddy strip of paper: I'm sorry.

And then Dean understood what happened: his father knew what Dean didn't, and had drunk himself stupid in a wish to forget.

"I'm sorry," John said. "They took him. I'm sorry."

Dean sighed. He never, ever wanted to hear an apology again. Not from Sam, and not from his father. Not from police or teachers or supposed friends. Dean just wanted his brother back.

Instead he got 'I'm sorry' over and over again. He didn't understand how his twelve year old brother had disappeared three days before and no one had seen anything. He didn't understand how his father had just curled up in a whiskey bottle and refused to do anything. Or how his brother's final request was to apologize for something Dean didn't even know what he was apologizing for. Unless his brother knew this would happen. And that Dean would not accept.

Could not accept.

Dean partially wanted to find Sam just to kill him himself.

"Dad, just tell me what you know," Dean pleaded as he watched his father fight to open the bottle of alcohol. He had already read his father's journal. He knew about the cult in the suburbs, he knew about the grisly deaths: kids dismembered with crushed skulls and burst eyeballs and lengths of burned skin. He had also made the connection that all the kids were city kids; a connection John had apparently failed to make quick enough. It was the type of mistake his father rarely made. Typical Winchester luck that it would come back and bite them in the ass. "Why can't we go find Sam?" Dean asked.

John finally pulled off the top, took a slug of the whiskey, and banged the bottle thickly on the linoleum as he put it down. There was screaming from next door: strings of curse words and banging doors. John was still slouched against the wall. It was where he had fallen when Dean had punched him an hour ago. Dean had thought that he was going to get his ass whipped, but his father had just sat there, looking desolately up at Dean. It reminded Dean of how his father was after his mother had died.

A chill raced down Dean's spine. His throat tightened. He could barely speak the next words, but he forced them out: "Sammy's still alive, isn't he?"

The arguing next door paused for a moment, and then the woman let lose a loud shriek of indignant rage punctuated by "Out! Out! Out!"

John swallowed a few times, his eyes locked on Dean's as his hand searched in his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small plastic Ziploc bag and held it out for Dean to inspect. "I don't know," John said.

Dean wanted to cry.

Or puke.

Or both.

The bag held a chunk of slightly curly brown hair bloody at the roots, and a small bloody fingernail.

On the fifth day, in the early morning, Dean woke up to the sound of his father crying. His father didn't cry, and it was tying more knots in Dean's stomach. He rolled off the couch with a shiver, instantly awake. The front door was wide open and his father crouched in the doorway in the morning light, rocking back and forth.

Dean approached cautiously. "Dad?" Dean asked. His toes were going numb from the cold. His father was muttering an apology over and over.

When he stepped close enough, Dean could see a blanket-wrapped bundle in his father's arms. He frowned, unable to make his mind register what it was he was seeing. When it did, he wished he could unsee it.

It was Sam: blue, black, and bloody. His face was beaten near unrecognizable, his arms were cut: slices precise and clean to draw out the pain before bleeding to death. Dean could see bare arms and legs, all black and blue and a few at unnatural angles. It took a moment for Dean's mind to register that Sam's clothes were gone, leaving him with only the blanket for protection from the cold.

Dean didn't think past that, couldn't absorb the possible implications; instead, he reacted. The ambulance was there before his father could even protest using a hospital. Not that Dean would have heeded his father anyway. It was easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

At some point, Dean noticed that his father was sober. It might have been when the coffee was shoved into his hands in the too-full waiting room. It might have been later, in the beeping of the white, white ICU when their father had leaned over Sam and whispered "I'll fix this, Sammy."

It didn't really matter when his father had regained control of himself. It only mattered that he did, because then Dean knew that everything would be okay, that it had to be. Even super heroes had weaknesses. And some part of him still believed that his father was a super hero.

On the sixth day, Sam woke up. Dean called him sleeping beauty as he held up some ice for his brother to eat and Sam smiled weakly. John entered soon after; face grim after talking to Sam's doctor. Dean watched his father's eyes scan over his youngest son's form before he bent down and gently kissed Sam's forehead. He listened as John whispered white lies to Sam that Dean didn't contradict, lies that covered up the fact that John had spent the past days drunk to oblivion and believing that his youngest was dead.

Dean swore to himself that he would never tell Sam the truth. Sam didn't need to know. So Dean took the knowledge and crammed it as far down inside him as it would go. He had to believe that it would all be okay, that their father would fix things like he promised.

Later, Sam slept, woke from nightmares, slept some more. Dean spent that day beside his brother's bed, telling Sam dirty stories for lullabies and running his fingers through his brother's greasy, knotted hair.

On the ninth day, after John had gone to get dinner and it was just the brothers, Sam opened his eyes and looked at Dean. He didn't say anything; he hadn't said anything at all since waking up in the hospital. He hadn't even spoken to the cops. There were rings of bruises around his neck resembling hand prints, so Dean wasn't sure if his brother couldn't talk or didn't want to. Dean hadn't kept track of all of Sam's injuries, didn't understand the medical jargon, so he had left it to John to worry about. He just knew that his brother was a beaten mass of swelling, bruising and broken bones; encased in casts, wrapped in bandages, and surrounded by beeping machines that doctors checked every hour. Three days and the bruising still looked black and fresh, three days and the swelling in Sam's face was just beginning to lessen.

Dean swore that if he ever found who had done so much harm to Sam, he'd kill them.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said when Sam continued to stare at him. He held up a chip of ice, slid it passed his brother's lips, watched as Sam's throat worked to swallow the little bit of water. "You want another one?" Dean asked when Sam licked his lips.

Same shook his head, licked his lips again. "Dean," he said in a voice raspy with disuse, "I know who's been committing the murders."

Dean handed his list of names to his father, fingers of his other hand white knuckled into a fist. The motel was silent, no couple arguing on the other side of the walls. John looked at the list Dean had compiled, held it up to his own as if his suspicions were confirmed. Dean looked at his father's two-week-old beard, the dark circles under his eyes and thought he hadn't ever seen his father look so tired. "No apparent witchcraft?" John asked.

Dean shook his head, the shadows from the dim lighting exaggerating his movement.

No. Not Yet. Just people.

"People are crazy," John said as he passed Dean weapons and equipment.

Dean nodded as he packed everything into a small duffel. He and his father were going hunting.

Dean listened to the rhythmic thwak, thwak, thwak of fist hitting face as he cleaned the blood off his blade on the black robes of one of the several dead men on the ground. Around him the woods were dark, with only the occasional stretch of headlights making it all the way to the clearing. It was cold, and his breath puffed white before him. There was a bloody noose hanging from one of the tree branches, and he tried not to think about what it was used for, tried not to imagine his brother there.

Dean stood straight when his blade was clean and resisted the urge to stab the man again. In Dean's opinion, they had all died too quickly considering they had beaten, molested and killed at least ten kids. Especially considering they had beaten, possibly molested, and almost killed Sam. But Dean and John had to be quick; before anyone came looking for these men or became suspicious of the bon fire his father planned to make with their bodies.

Sheathing his knife, he picked up a dropped gun and went over to his father.

The man his father was beating was mostly dead, his facial bones crushed, his nose caved in. Dean knew who it was anyway: Sam's homeroom teacher. The man who had sent a video tape to John warning him to stay back from the cult or else; a warning that went unheeded. The man had then offered Sam a ride home and Sam had trusted him because it was his teacher, someone who was supposed to be safe. Sam never made it home, and John had received a lock of Sam's hair and a fingernail while Dean had been riding around the city looking for his missing brother.

It was only because Sam was smart and fast and partially trained that he had escaped. The cult hadn't chased him because they thought he wouldn't survive naked in the cold fighting dehydration, bleeding wrists, and broken bones. Sam refused to talk about the details of the week he was gone. This made Dean both worried and relieved. He was relieved because he didn't really want to know. Worried because the longer he went without knowing, the worse things would become in his mind.

Thwak. Thwak. Thwak.

There was a loud crack after the last hit; the sound of a neck snapping. The man's head lay at a funny angle and John stopped hitting him. He was dead now; beaten to death as so many of his victims had been.

"Never again," Dean heard his father whisper into the night. "Never. Again." Dean nodded his agreement.

John stood and staggered a few feet from the body, his back to Dean. His knuckles were oozing blood down his fingers, and his shoulders sagged. Dean stepped up to the body while aiming the gun. He shot a bullet into the heart, into the brain, into the crotch. Then he spit.

"Pile the bodies, Dean," his father said in a voice quiet and rough.

"Yes, Sir."

Sam was the only surviving victim of the cult, whose members were all mysteriously murdered one after another after the main group had been slaughtered. It was a media frenzy, and everyone was dying to get a picture, an interview, to learn what the survivor saw and how he escaped. Especially as the police kept finding more evidence than they had ever wanted to of things they had never wanted to see: abuse, molestation, torture. The news said there were pictures and video tapes. John and Dean were terrified of what might be someplace in someone's pile, but neither of them had the courage to ask Sam. They didn't really want to know.

So in the dead of night they snuck out the back door of the hospital mere hours before their fake healthcare was spotted. Sam wasn't well exactly, but well enough. He was bruised and had casts and was on as many painkillers as a cancer patient. But if they stayed, they chanced losing Sam to the government because the nurses were curious and reporters were digging for information on their family.

Stashing crutches and paper bags of stolen medicine into the trunk of the Impala, Dean watched his father carry Sam away and tuck him into the high black truck John drove. He saw his brother's head nod as John asked him questions and fiddled with blankets and Gatorade bottles. Then, as Dean climbed into the driver's side of the Impala, his father nodded to him and they left.

Six states and their father was still insistent on driving further before even looking for a new hunt. He refused to stay in a motel, and wouldn't leave Dean for more than half an hour if they were in a store or restaurant. He wouldn't let Sam out of his sight.

Six states away and they were still seeing the cult in all the newspapers. Dean didn't read the articles anymore, and he didn't want Sam to either. It was over. It had to be over.

Standing in line in a grocery store as they restocked on snacks and bandages, one newspaper had the picture of all the dead children paraded across the front. One of the pictures was of the frizzy, bright red-haired girl. Sam stared at it as their father unloaded items onto the conveyor belt and paid. Dean frowned, reached over and folded the first news paper over to hide the faces of the dead children.

"They were all in school with me, Dean," Sam said quietly, shifting on his crutches. "I knew them all. I think I heard some of them die."

Dean felt a shudder run down his spine. He said nothing because there wasn't anything he could say.

"I was told that everyone got a last request, and everyone asked to be let go. Then they died. I knew they weren't letting me go. " Sam said.

So he had written notes saying 'I'm sorry' to Dean and John.

At Dean's silence, Sam met his gaze and held it. "I thought for a long time, and I couldn't think of anything else to write but I'm sorry. All I could think was that I never should have gotten in that car. That I was going to die because of it, and that you and Dad had taught me better."

"There was nothing for you to be sorry about, Sam" John spoke from behind them as he shoved his wallet into his back pocket. Dean looked to his father, grateful, because Dean hadn't had any idea what to say.

John picked up the plastic bags filled with supplies and handed one to Dean. "People are crazy," he said as he placed his now free hand on top of Sam's head. He smoothed Sam's hair down until his hand held the back of Sam's neck, his thumb gently running over Sam's cheek. "There was nothing you could have done. They got what they deserved."

There was a pause as if Sam was debating his father's words, but after a moment he nodded. "Okay," he said, and John gave a soft smile. Dean wondered if his father missed the lie in Sam's voice, or had just chosen to ignore it.

"They're all dead, aren't they?" Sam asked Dean in the dark of the Impala. They were parked in a dark parking lot on the side of some little known international route. The parking lot lights were off; the building for the parking lot abandoned and boarded up. In the dark and the quiet, it seemed like the world was holding its breath, waiting for spring.

More days and states had past and their father had only just relaxed enough to let Sam out of his sight and into Dean's care. Dean was grateful; he loved the Impala and driving the open roads. But it had been strange driving alone. Sam had always ridden with him before. It was too quiet by himself, and Dean didn't really like the silence.

The back seat was no longer as big as it had been when they were young and each boy could curl up on half the seat to sleep. It wasn't even large enough to have kicking wars, like it had been when Dean hit thirteen and a growth spurt into adolescence had suddenly had him gobbling up space that he hadn't just weeks before. But they both managed to fit, if a little more snugly: Dean's legs stretched out across the seat and his back to the door with Sam more or less stretched out on top of him using Dean's chest for a pillow. They were stopped someplace in the south; Georgia or something where true winter had yet to touch.

"You and Dad killed them, didn't you?" Sam asked again when he didn't respond.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Sammy," Dean said, pulling himself from the edge of sleep. He felt his brother shift and could practically feel Sam's eye roll. A streetlight in the road flickered and Dean watched the twinkling orange light through half opened eyes.

"They were people, Dean," Sam said. "Bad people, but they were still people."

"People can be monsters too," Dean said. People were crazy. His father's words. At the thought, Dean automatically glanced at the large truck parked in the lot next to them. He wondered if his father was asleep.

"If I became a monster, would you kill me?" Sam asked and Dean almost snorted as he glanced away from the truck and down to the top of his brother's head.

"You'll never be a monster, Sammy. I won't let you," Dean said, rather proud of himself for keeping the ridicule out of his voice. The idea of his brother, the one itching to lecture him on humanity, turning evil was ludicrous.

The silence stretched, and Dean was on the edge of dreamland when Sam spoke. "Dean," Sam said, "I'm okay." It was a lie, and they both knew it. Dean didn't have to point out that Sam was still black and blue and he couldn't walk without crutches.

"I've read the papers, and I see the way you and Dad have been looking at me," Sam trailed off but Dean didn't interrupt. For some reason his brother made most of his confessions at night, as if his secrets were only safe in the dark. Or maybe it was so the secrets wouldn't be able to circle him like sharks in the ocean when the sky had no light. "They didn't touch me. Mr. Jameson wouldn't let them. And there are no pictures or video," Sam paused for a moment. "I burned it all." His voice was bitter, as if there were more to the story than he was telling.

Dean took a deep breath, waited a heartbeat, two, watched the flickering streetlight die and then breathed out. "Go to sleep, Sam," he said quietly. There was more to the story but Sam needed time, and Dean wouldn't push. It would all come out eventually, the lies and truths, on quiet dark nights like this, like pus leaking from an infected wound.

Reviews = Love


	2. Please Understand

**Authors Note:** Okay: I owe everyone a huge apology. This has been one heck of a chaotic summer. Plus, my computer has crashed numerous times as well as picked up the tendency to give me the blue screen of death. This part has been written and rewritten close to a hundred times. I felt the first part was lacking in the usual detail that I write with, and I wanted to correct that in this piece. It works well as a stand-alone, but also works in tandem with Redemption.

"Please Understand" isn't a continuation of "I'm Sorry" (the first part of Filtered). What I wrote may have been a little misleading. Each of the three sections in Filtered could stand alone. But they're tied together by the times that Sam wrote letters to Dean, which is something that is mentioned within Redemption. You don't need to read Redemption to read Filtered. And you don't need to read Filtered to understand Redemption. You just need to read and enjoy. =)

I have no beta; so don't take me to be bad or sloppy with grammar and spelling. If you're a writer, you understand how mistakes can slip through when you've looked over something so many times. Not to mention Word changing spellings on you because it believes you to be wrong. If you find mistakes, please tell me, so I can go back and fix them. It would be much appreciated.

Again, I'm sorry this was such a wait. I promise to have the third and final part out sooner. **Reviews = love!**

**Disclaimer:** If I owned these characters, I would no longer be in student debt. I'm just borrowing them.

**Summary:** Dean really hated letters from Sam. They never even said anything specific. Just: _I'm sorry_ or _please understand_ or _I'll always be your brother_.

**Warnings: **Teen!chester, pre-series, slight-AU, Rated T

* * *

Filtered

* * *

**2. Please Understand**

John rolled over on the lumpy leather couch and a spring dug into his side. He should have believed Dean when his oldest said the couch was damn uncomfortable. No one was there to see John move into the master bedroom of the apartment, but he was determined to show his boys that sleep was possible anywhere. So he ignored the lumps and the awkward sagging cushions and closed his eyes.

It was quiet; the only sound that of the cars passing by on the street. He usually relished the stillness. At the moment it just reminded him that Sam was late. An hour ago John had been irritated and angry. Now he was becoming worried. After all, his youngest was stubborn and wouldn't budge unless he knew _why_, but he wasn't reckless. He'd give Sam another hour to return home before going out looking.

But first John needed some sleep. He was tired. Not just tired: bone-deep weary. He was also sore, and relatively sure that he had cracked a rib.

The past three nights were spent protecting a family from an angry spirit while his sons had driven from cemetery to cemetery searching for bones to salt and burn. It had been a fruitless effort, but not from lack of trying. John had found the bones, quite accidentally, in the living room wall. When he made his discovery, the spirit launched him through the window on the other side of the room. After that it was just a matter of waiting for daylight when the spirit would be weaker and easier to get rid of.

He shifted slightly. A spring dug into his ribs and another into his hip. The entire couch smelled faintly of mildew. John thought that maybe Dean was right and it was time to rent newer places. Who knew what stale smoke, mold, and—more than likely—asbestos were doing to his family's lungs. Mary would kill him if she knew the types of places the boys had stayed in.

John was almost asleep when the key turned in the lock. The door had squeaked when they moved in, before Dean dumped close to a whole can of WD-40 on the hinges, claiming the noise was louder than the TV. So the door didn't squeak open. Instead the doorknob rattled, followed by quiet shuffling and the light thud of books on the wooden floorboards before the door softly clicked closed.

John let himself feel relief for the two minutes it took his son to get in the door before saying:"You're late, Sam. You were supposed to be home at five. It's seven."

"I told Dean to tell you," Sam said, his voice defensive, ready to fight. "He forgot, didn't he?" John didn't need to open his eyes to see his son's dismay. He did anyway.

Sam's new height still surprised him. His youngest still had his baby face but had grown tall and lanky; his arms and legs seeming too long for him, telling John that Sam still had more to grow. Which, John mused, wouldn't Sam being taller than Dean cause the older brother to bitch? The mud-spattered gym clothes Sam wore were hand-me-downs from Dean and himself. The shirt was close to threadbare, the shorts faded from their original navy blue. There was a bleeding gash on Sam's leg, and a newly forming black eye.

"I thought I told you no soccer at this school?" John asked. He hated when Sam got involved in sports or student government or anything, really. It made the boy attached, and for weeks before and after a move he would be near impossible to live with.

"No," Sam said, dabbing up the blood from his leg with the edge of the shorts. "You said no soccer team. You never said I couldn't practice with them."

John was too tired to argue the point, but it was a distinction he'd remember. "Your turn to make dinner," he said instead.

Sam nodded and headed into the kitchen area. A cabinet opened and closed, and there was a metallic clang followed by the unmistakable rattle of macaroni in a box. John was tempted to ask his son not to make Mac n' Cheese. At the sound of running water, John decided to let it go. He was too tired to care what he ate.

"Where's Dean?" Sam asked.

John didn't know why Sam bothered. They both knew where Dean was. It was the same place Dean had been every night for the past few weeks. "Where do you think? He's with what's-her-name." John said, closing his eyes again and throwing his hand over his face to block out the light from the kitchen. What's-her-name was the standard he used for any girl Dean was seeing. He had stopped keeping track of Dean's girlfriends when the boy was fifteen. There were just too many to count.

Sam huffed a laugh from the kitchen as he opened and closed cabinets. "God, I can't wait until we move."

For a moment, John thought he was in a parallel universe. Then he recovered. "Why's that?"

"Nothin'," Sam mumbled. The gas light clicked and the burner ignited with a whoosh.

"You have something against Dean's girlfriend?" John asked, belatedly wondering if he should have let his youngest shower before telling him to make dinner.

Sam sighed and John waited. "There's something wrong with this girl, Dad. I don't like her."

"And this is the first time you haven't liked someone your brother goes out with." John said skeptically. He could almost see the scowl on Sam's face, feel the glower. Sam hadn't liked the majority of the girls Dean saw, and they both knew it.

"This is different," his son said obstinately, and John wanted to roll his eyes.

"Dean's a big boy" John said. "He knows how to take care of himself." Ignoring Sam's snort, he rolled over onto his other side, facing the back of the couch. All he could smell was mold.

* * *

It was drizzling when John reached the camp grounds in the state forest. Most of the weather reports forecasted sun and high temperatures for the next week. This probably meant horrific downpours and a chance of snow in June. John didn't want to go camping in bad weather, but bad weather also meant fewer campers for a Wendigo to eat. He could hunt for its hideout without worry that the thing was off killing people he was trying to protect.

"Hey John, "Bobby said, pulling John's attention back to the phone conversation. John killed the truck and Bobby's voice was suddenly loud in the quiet cab. "Is there any reason why Sam would want to know about Succubae?"

John couldn't stop his surprised laugh, even as his sore ribs ached with the movement. "Dean's got a new girlfriend that Sam's taken a disliking to," John said, readjusting the cell phone against his ear as he looked around at the empty parking lot. "I guess he dislikes her more than I thought."

Bobby was silent on the other end. Then he asked: "Are you sure that's all it is? Sam sounded pretty upset."

"Yeah, don't worry about it, Bobby." John said, still amused and a little proud at his son's assumption. No, the supernatural was not going to take his family by surprise ever again.

"Well, I already got all the information," Bobby drawled and John could hear shuffling paper on the other end of the line, "so I might as well as tell the kid what he wants to know anyway. "

John huffed another laugh. "All right, I'm sure Sam will absorb the knowledge no matter. By the way, thanks for the info on the Wendigo, Bobby."

"No problem," Bobby said. "Now, I called you in on this one, so don't get yourself killed." And then the line was dead. The other man never had been much for good-byes. Not with John, anyway.

John watched the rain drops splatter on the windshield for a moment, his cell phone heavy in his hand. The clouds were gray on the horizon and not the black of a thunderstorm, so John supposed he should count himself lucky. He dialed the number to the apartment and held the phone to his ear. He had left too early in the morning for Dean to be awake and he hadn't seen Sam before he went to school. John had been in a rush to leave before morning traffic picked up, and had forgotten to leave a message telling his boys his plans.

Dean wouldn't be happy being left behind, but bringing Dean would have meant bringing Sam. And after the fights on the last hunt, he just didn't have the patience for Sam's disobedience. He loved his smart, quick-witted son, but wanted to throttle him most of the time recently. Dean would get over being left behind sooner than Sam would recover from John throttling him.

Dean picked up on the second ring with a growl of anger in his voice.

"Dean? Is everything okay?" John asked, his mind filling with emergencies and mental maps of the quickest road back to his boys.

"Yeah, everything's fine. What's up?" Dean asked. John didn't really believe him, but he trusted there was no emergency.

"I got a call from Bobby last night about a suspected Wendigo," John said. "Dried up husks have been appearing in the state forest. I'm going to be camping for a couple of days to try and get this thing before it kills again."

"You're going to hunt a Wendigo by yourself?" Dean's voice was thick with disapproval. John sometimes wondered who the parent was.

"Don't worry, I got backup with me," John lied, looking through the windshield at the wet pavement and nearly empty parking lot. "Where's your brother?"

"Off being a bitch somewhere," Dean growled into the other end of the phone. John thought that perhaps his youngest was going to get himself throttled no matter where he was. "We had a fight and he left."

John frowned. His sons fought a lot. Mostly over little things: computers, food, personal space. It came from living out of each other's pockets. His boys had their own methods of dealing and John tried not to interfere in that. But Sam wasn't one to storm out. Something felt off about it.

"Is this over the girl?" John asked.

There was a long pause and he had his answer.

"I really like her, Dad," Dean said, voice suddenly soft. John sighed. He had figured that. Dean went through girls like other people went through underwear. This girl had captured Dean's attention for close to a month. John almost hated to remind his son that they'd be leaving the area soon.

John scrubbed a hand down his face. "I can't tell you what's going through your brother's head. But try not to fight with him when I'm not around, okay?" Dean would never hurt Sam, but the pranks could escalate pretty quickly.

The answer was a sullen "Yes, sir."

"I'll be in touch. Oh, and enjoy that girl of yours for a little while longer, okay?" John said with a smile into the phone.

Dean chuckled a jovial answer, "Yes, sir."

* * *

Four days in the woods, three without his cell. It had died when he was trying to check his messages. Damn technology. John had all the information he needed for the hunt. He would just have to trust that Dean could take care of anything else that might come up.

It was cold for early summer with an off and on drizzle, and he was still far from where the bodies had been found. He wouldn't reach the area that day. He wasn't meaning to. He had spent the last three days circling the woods, looking for caves or an abandoned mine the monster would be living in. Hunting a Wendigo solo was not the smartest thing to do. It occurred to John that he should have brought Dean or at least actually have the backup he told his son he had. Too little too late, he decided as he trudged on.

A mosquito buzzed by his ear and he swatted at it, crushing it against his neck. Another took its place within moments. Even with the drizzling rain there was bird song in the trees, and small skittering things racing from place to place around him. Every few minutes an owl hooted. So much activity meant he wasn't near the creature he was hunting.

He hacked at the bushes on the trail in front of him. He had been in these woods before, hunted a witch on the other side of the forest. He didn't remember the brush being so thick. But then places tended to vary on location, and he was over a few miles away from the area he was familiar with. With one last hack, he unexpectedly broke through into a small clearing.

He shaded his eyes from sudden sunlight on his face and brushed leaves and pine needles from his hair. There was sap stuck on his hands and face; dry but still sticky. The area smelled like fresh tilled earth. When his eyes focused, John paused, cursed. He was too late; a body lay at the base of a large tree in the middle of the clearing.

John took a step closer, and cursed again, heart in his throat, hoping against hope that he was wrong. He took another step, praying that the clothing wasn't faded jeans smeared with grease stains and a torn red flannel shirt from Wal-mart. One more step, hoping that the curve of cheek and unruly brown hair weren't as familiar as he thought they were. His heart froze when he stood beside the body.

"Sammy?" he asked as his eyes scanned his son's still form. Dozens of notebooks and numerous pens were scattered around his son on the ground. Sam's hair was pushed back from his forehead and his hands were folded neatly on his stomach as if someone had readied him for death.

John knelt and pressed his fingers to cool skin to look for a pulse, still hoping for a bad dream, an illusion. It was a small eternity before he felt a thump against his fingers, then two. His heart lurched back to life to pound painfully against his ribs. Cupping the back of his Sam's neck, he frowned as he looked his son over.

Sam had lost weight; a lot of weight for only a few days. Before, he'd had the rounded cheeks of boyhood, the last of his baby fat still waiting to be shed. Now John could see his son's cheek bones, could see how he looked like he was being swallowed by his clothes. John placed his hand on Sam's chest and took comfort in the rise and fall of his breathing.

Slowly, John cradled Sam's head and upper body, tapped his son's cheek. "Sammy, you have to wake up, now, Son." He said. Someplace above him, the owl hooted and a small creature scurried through the leaves. The noise of the forest nearly swallowed his whisper. He cleared his throat to make his voice sterner. He failed with a weak: "Come on, wake up." And Sam didn't respond.

John's mind raced with a million different ways that this could have happened. None of them involved a Wendigo. Had it been Dean, John might have suspected he had been followed. But Sam didn't like hunting, wouldn't be eager to join his father in the woods if there were school and soccer and friends.

Looking at the notebooks on the ground, John swallowed thickly, knowing there was more going on than he knew. "What the hell happened, Sam?"

* * *

There were 15 thick notebooks. All but the last were completely full of Sam's handwriting. Nothing written was original. They were filled with Shakespeare and Wordsworth and T.S. Eliot; filled with Latin passages John used as lullabies for his boys when he was still learning to be a Hunter, John's own explanation on disassembling and reassembling a semi-automatic; pages filled with lyrics to the songs Dean listened to over and over again, Dean's favorite conquest stories and dirty jokes. Sometimes the words were nothing more than Dad, Dean, Dad, Dean, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad for pages. As if writing their names enough times would conjure the two people Sam had wanted to come for him more than anything else in the world.

John scrubbed a hand down his face, and just looked at the writing without reading it. He allowed his eyes to follow the curving swirling letters: the exaggerated S's, the bubbled B's, the softly rounded E's and Y's, the subtle tilt of all the words. John's heart ached.

He closed the blue notebook on the small nightstand in front of him and sighed as if it would dispel the pain. John let himself wish for a brief moment that he had done something differently. That he had woken up before Mary screamed; had kept a closer eye on Sam. He let himself wish that he would wake up and Sam would be awake and normal; not silent and still on the ragged twin bed.

Standing from his chair, John stretched, glancing at the fading daylight out the window.

The room was small: holding two small twin beds, a crooked bureau, a closet with no doors and the small nightstand piled with notebooks. Dean and John had fit chairs on either side of Sam's bed but just barely. The ancient AC window unit was puttering away on high, undoubtedly Dean's doing, and empty pizza boxes littered the floor. Half the small room looked like a closet had exploded. The other half had neat stacks of books organized by size along the wall. The entire room smelled of stale pizza, old sweat, and mildew. "Have you slept at all, Dean?" John asked.

Dean shrugged, his gaze returning to the paper he was flipping over and over in his hands.

John sat on the edge of Sam's bed by Dean, and ran a hand through his youngest son's hair. It had been two days since John had brought Sam back to the hotel, and Sam was no longer just underweight. He was gaunt. John kept thinking of pictures he had seen of Germany in World War II, and the concentration camps. Sam hadn't woken up once, wouldn't swallow food or water. He was dehydrated, malnourished, and dropping weight faster than he should.

"Did you find anything in the notebooks?" Dean asked, pulling John's attention away from Sam's too-still form.

John shook his head, his gaze still on Sam. "No," he said, "There were no answers in there. Just…I don't know. It's like he wrote down everything he ever read or heard in his life." John turned to face Dean, his hand resting on Sam's wrist, seeking his youngest son's weak pulse. He brought his other hand to rest on the back of Dean's neck, pulling Dean's attention to him. "What's on the paper, Dean?"

Dean stared at the paper for a moment before passing it over.

It was no more than a scrap, torn from some school worksheet or notice. It had been white and crisp two days before, but now it was flimsy and worn with a thousand creases. On one side, in bright blue ink and curving letters were the words: _Please understand._

John's heart hurt and he must have made a sound because suddenly Dean's hand was a comforting weight on his shoulder. He met Dean's questioning stare. "He writes just like your mother," John said as if it explained everything. Dean nodded as if it did.

"What the hell does this mean?" John asked, holding up the paper.

Dean shook his head once slowly, back and forth. "I don't know," he said.

* * *

Sam had asked Bobby about succubae.

The thought came days later, after hiking through the woods with his unconscious son on his back as if Sam were 6 and not 16, after the long ride back to the hotel room to be met with a guilty and frantic Dean, after settling his son in bed and noticing that he was no longer just losing weight, but appearing absolutely gaunt. After recharging his cell phone and listening to the voice messages: Bobby, Sam, Dean, Dean, Dean.

Bobby had asked why Sam wanted to know about succubae. John had laughed, but Bobby hadn't. He hadn't said anything but that he'd give Sam a call. And then John found Sam passed out in the woods surrounded by notebooks.

"Hey Dean,' John said, scrolling through the numbers in his phone. "Where's your girl?" It passed for nonchalant, which was the best way to get information from Dean short of ordering it out of him. And John always felt badly after commanding his son to tell him something he didn't want to.

Dean paused in his new-found hobby of pacing to scowl. "She's gone."

It was raining again, and John could hear the sound on the roof over the clunking of the AC. "Her choice or yours?" John asked, earning another scowl, but ignoring it.

"Does it matter?" Dean asked with a swift gesture at Sam.

"It might, "John said, pushing the call button on Bobby's number. He raised his eyebrows at his son as he held the phone to his ear.

"Hers, I guess. I don't know—she just disappeared." Dean grumbled and continued his pacing: one, two, three, wall, turn, three, two, one, doorway, turn.

Bobby picked up on the third ring. "''yello?"

John didn't bother with niceties. "I found Sam passed out in the woods a few miles from the other bodies. He won't wake up."

"I thought you weren't takin' the boys with you?" Bobby asked. The connection had some static, but Bobby's confusion was tangible.

"I didn't." John said and explained.

Bobby swore. John waited, watching raindrops run down the window like tears on human cheeks.

"I need to know what you told Sam about succubae." John continued when the string of profanities started to sputter out.

His gaze had landed on his older son with the words. Dean stopped pacing and stared at him with wide eyes, mouthed the word 'succubae'. John watched him blanch of color and shake his head, slowly, in disbelief, as if a bad dream were coming true. Part of John wanted to console his son. Another part wanted to rip into him for bringing a supernatural danger to their door and never realizing it. John knew that neither action would be wholly fair so he turned back to the window and said nothing at all. Any damage he did to Dean's feelings could be fixed once they were sure Sam wouldn't die.

"It wasn't a succubus," Bobby said over the crackle in the connection. "Sam said so after I gave him the information. I didn't have anything else to do, so I kept digging. After what you said about the notebooks, I think I may know what you're dealing with."

"What?" John asked, listening to the rustling of papers on the other line. He didn't jump when the front door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows. Dean was gone; off to blow off steam and guilt in whatever way he knew how. John wished he could do the same, wished he could go to a bar and drink himself dumb. Instead he took a deep breath, held in a cough from the foul air, and then let it out.

"A sidhe," Bobby finally said, "a celtic faerie."

"A sidhe?" John had to keep his voice from being incredulous. He hadn't gone against one, but he had heard of them. They were intelligent and powerful. And damned near ancient. How the hell did his sons manage to tangle with a being most Hunters could never find? It had to be a talent.

"More particularly," Bobby continued, "one of their muses. She grants her victims eternal inspiration. Whatever works they do while under her influence become hugely famous. Unfortunately, her victims don't last long enough to enjoy their fame."

John's eyes travelled over Sam's form of skin and bones. "What do I need to take her out?"

"Well, if she's a sidhe," Bobby said with a sigh, "you need cold hard Iron. An iron knife to the chest, decapitation by an iron sword, or trapped in an iron cage and left to wither."

"Will it reverse what it's done to Sam?" John asked, wishing he knew a way to get his hands on an iron cage.

"I don't know," Bobby said. "But it will stop it from killing him."

"Good enough."

* * *

John liked guns. He had been around them all his life, and he was good with them. He liked that if it was done properly guns ended a life painlessly. He also liked that they were long range, and made it possible to stay away from whatever crazy supernatural thing he was after. Unfortunately, guns ran out of ammunition. And when the target moved a far sight faster than your vision, shooting it became difficult.

"You must be John Winchester." The voice came from the trees, and John aimed his gun at the branches above as if she would fall on him from the sky. "Father of Dean and Sam." The sidhe continued. She had a woman's voice; deep and husky. The kind of voice he had fantasized about as a teenager. "Your boys are delicious. So eager and bright. I especially liked Dean. He was going to be a singer and quite the lyricist. And then Darling Sam came along, and I just knew he had the gift of writing."

John was silent, eyes searching for his target. He had nothing to say to the creature that was feeding off his children. The woods were cool but muggy, and filled with the smell of ozone after all the rain. The sky was still overcast, dark clouds grouping in the west. Birdsong filled the trees, and John wondered if he was hearing the same owl as before.

"Do you know what I am, John?" she asked, voice echoing, bouncing away and back, confusing John's senses even more. Something scurried behind him, and he turned, gun aimed.

"I'm a muse," she said as if that explained everything. Once upon a time it probably had. "Unforgettable talent comes at a price. Samuel made an exchange: himself for his brother. I told him the craving would come. The one to write or paint or sing. It comes differently to everyone. It's the one thing I can offer those who help me live. It's their claim to fame."

"Sam won't become famous by what he's written." John's voice was steady, his aim more so. Even though he was aiming at a squirrel. The animal chattered and scurried away. John returned to scanning the area around him.

"Sam didn't want fame," the sidhe said, sounding like it was pouting. John thought muses must like to brag about what works they had inspired. "So I told him that he could do with the craving as he see fit: no one ever said that what was written had to be original."

And Sam had written. Sam who was always stuck in a book; Sam who could remember Latin verses in a night. He had written anything and everything he could remember: Latin exorcisms, pagan mythology, gun manuals, and Shakespearean plays. He had written any and everything except his own thoughts.

The Sidhe, when it stepped out from behind a tree, looked like Mary: long, blond hair, earnest eyes, and a bright smile. It was an illusion of course, but it still hurt. John willed himself to keep breathing, to remember why he was there. He reminded himself that if there were no supernatural things like muses in the world, he would still have his wife.

"What's your talent, John? Where is your artistic side?" The sidhe asked as she took slow steps towards him. She paused for a moment, eyes darkening. "Interesting," she said with Mary's smile and John focused his pain to anger and hate. "I'd never considered killing an art form." Her head tilted to the side, blonde curls brushing delicate shoulders. "But you do."

She continued her slow advance: one step toward John for every two steps back he took. "I can make you famous, John," she said, holding out a hand. The nails were bitten to the quick, just like John remembered. He wanted to scream at the thing to get out of his head.

"I'll give you one last warning," John said, proud of himself for the strength of his voice, "let go of Sam."

The muse laughed. It sounded like wind chimes. "Or you'll shoot me?"

With a slight shake of his head, John put his gun down. "I won't have to." John didn't take his eyes off the sidhe because he didn't want to alert the creature of what was about to happen. So he didn't see his eldest make his move, didn't wonder if Dean was seeing a different illusion, or worry that he would hesitate.

Dean would follow through because it was the only way to save Sam. John trusted that to be enough, even though he wasn't sure if he'd have been able to stab Mary's form through the heart—illusion or not. But perhaps Dean didn't see his mother, but the girl that he had been falling for, the girl who was siphoning life from Sam. Perhaps the betrayal was enough to deserve an iron short sword through the heart.

John didn't know, and as the blade sank home with a crack of bones and squish of metal slicing through meat and muscle, he wasn't going to ask. Dean was pale, but his jaw was set; his face a mix of pain, anger and hate that John could recognize anywhere. He saw it on his own face in the mirror every day.

John told himself that it was concern for his eldest son that kept him from watching the creature's final breath. It had nothing to do with not seeing the shock of death on his long-dead wife's face again. Nothing to do with wanting to rush over and catch his wife's form in his arms, brush the blonde hair behind an ear just one more time.

In death, where it laid on the ground, the sidhe didn't look like Mary or Dean's girlfriend. It didn't even look human. Its skin was brown and rough like tree bark, its eyes an eerie milky blue. Its hair was long and white-blond falling in spiraling curls. It was an odd mix between human and other that had been veiled with faerie magic.

The sword was still buried hilt-deep, and John pulled it free with one smooth yank. He held the blade in one hand and in the other he pulled up the head, stretching out the neck. It took a few good whacks and blood red as roses spattered both him and Dean by the end, but he was able to pass the head to Dean.

"We'll burn it to be sure," John said, and Dean nodded. John didn't know if salting and burning did anything to a sidhe, but it would feel good to watch it go up in flames.

* * *

"Going out again, Dean?" John caught his son before the door to the apartment closed.

For one brief second, he saw Dean's grimace before it was covered with a shit-eating grin and arrogance. "Well, you know," Dean said with a casual shrug, "Not much time left here, right? Figured I might as well enjoy the local delicacies."

John nodded, stood from the couch and tossed him a wad of bills. "Make some money while you're out there?"

Dean caught the money, smiled, nodded and then was gone.

With a sigh, John stretched and slowly walked to the back bedroom his boys shared. Sam had been asleep a little while before, but he would probably be awake now. Killing the sidhe hadn't given Sam back any of what he lost. He was skin and bones with barely enough energy to sit up on his own. Walking was out of the question. He slept and ate and slept some more and reminded John of when he was a newborn. It would be a long, slow climb to recovery, gaining weight back and then training for the muscle. It would be a while before he could take on a hunt, which left John a man short. It was inconvenient, but manageable.

John stood in the doorway of his sons' bedroom. The AC was off despite the recent spike in temperature, and John felt sweat drip down the back of his neck. Sam's eyes were closed but he wasn't sleeping. "You alright, Sam?" John asked.

"This sucks." Sam said, opening his eyes and looking over at his father. John could only imagine. His independent sixteen year old was reduced to relying on his father and brother for everything.

"Yeah, well, that's what you get for offering yourself as food for a supernatural creature," John said, shoving his hands in his pockets, and leaning against the door frame. He could admit to himself that he was a little glad that Sam was left in such a weakened state. John didn't ever want his youngest serving himself up as a sacrifice ever again.

"She was going to take Dean, Dad. She planned on keeping him, like a pet, but a pet that you would feed off of," Sam said, voice strong, defiant. John shuddered at the thought of his oldest son fettered by a magically induced love. "She told me so. I couldn't let it happen. Not to Dean." It wasn't a plea or even an apology. It was a statement.

John suddenly worried that perhaps Sam hadn't learned his lesson after all. His anger and frustration bubbled, and he pinched the bridge of his nose hoping to relieve some of the sudden tension. "So you made an exchange? How did you know she wasn't lying?"

Sam shrugged. "I did my homework," he said, "The sidhe can't lie. So I made her promise."

John ran a hand through his hair and didn't even want to count the ways it could have gone wrong. Had he been so foolhardy and cocksure when he was Sam's age? He couldn't remember, but he didn't think he had been. Dean had his moments, but always followed orders in the end. John rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath. Seating himself beside Sam's bed, he changed the subject before the urge to throttle Sam fully bloomed. "How'd you end up in the woods?"

Sam shook his head, his gaze going from John to the ceiling and around the room until finally landing on John again. "I honestly have no idea. I don't remember. We made the deal here, after I trapped her in the Impala."

The response made John pause for a moment. The more he thought about it, the more ingenious an idea it was. John wished he had thought of it.

"Dad," Sam said, catching John's full attention again. Sam looked tired, beaten, and was giving the full on puppy dog gaze that had always gotten him anything he had wanted from his brother. "Dean won't even look at me." It was desperate, sad. A plea for John to fix it, but John didn't think he could.

"Just give him some time, son." John said, running his fingers through his son's hair, grateful that his youngest was alive. "He's working some things out." And looking at Sam brought all those things to the surface. John understood that all too well. For a long time after the fire, John hadn't been able to look at his youngest without seeing Mary and her death.

John cupped his son's face in his hand, and considered how many things could have gone differently in the past week. John could have still been out in the woods hunting a wendigo that didn't exist, and have never found Sam. Or Sam could have not made the deal, and Dean would be wasting away someplace. The pure luck involved in finding Sam in the woods to begin with was something he didn't want to think about. But if it hadn't been for Sam's suspecting succubae, John never would have known what they were after so quickly. He wouldn't have figured out how to kill it in time to save his sons.

"How'd you figure it out, Sammy?" John asked, pulling back from Sam and leaning back in the chair.

Sam snorted and looked at him incredulously. "Dean was writing poetry, Dad."

John tried to imagine Dean's major interests—cars, money, and large breasted women—fitting into poetry. He couldn't. "And?" John prompted Sam to continue with a raised eyebrow.

Sam looked exasperated for a moment. "They were love poems, Dad. Dean. Love poems. And it was decent iambic pentameter," Sam said, his expression pleading with his father to understand.

Finally, John cracked a smile. Dean was not one to write poetry. John wasn't even sure his eldest son had any idea what it was. "That would be a rather large tip-off, wouldn't it?" He said ruefully.

Sam grinned and shrugged. "It was either the girl or the end of the world. And I figure the end of the world won't end with love poems." Sam's eyelids were starting to droop, even a small conversation wearing on his short energy reserves.

"Get some rest, Sam," John said, patting his son on the shoulder as he stood up. Sam nodded, eyes already closed.

John watched his son for a minute, and listened to the silence, absorbed the stillness, used it to refocus himself.

Dean was safe.

Sam was safe.

The apartment still smelled like mildew, and when John closed his eyes at night, he could see the creature wearing his Mary's face. The trail for whatever thing had murdered his wife was cold, but he wouldn't give up. He'd been searching for far too long. If he stopped now, all the years would have been a waste.

Moving back to the living room, John picked up one of the newspapers in the pile he'd had Dean buy for him. One or two were local; all the others were from different sections of the state. He read the main headlines for a few minutes before throwing them in the trash. It was time to move on to another state, time to find more people to save from nightmares turned real. They were Hunters, that's what they did. And one day, John would find the thing that destroyed his life, and end what started so long ago.

In the morning, he'd pack up his boys; ask one of them for a direction and go, he decided as he stretched across the bed in the master bedroom. Content with the thought of being on the road again, John slid into sleep.

* * *

Fin.

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**Please Review!**


	3. I'll Always Be Your Brother

Authors Note: Okay! So this third part (which was promised a long time ago) is finally done. I have no excuses for why this is so late, other than life is nuts. I promise that the next story I post will (if I post something else…inspiration has been lacking…) it will either be a one-shot or a multi-chapter in its entirety. Hope you enjoy this last part. All mistakes are my own, as I have no Beta. Reviews = Love

**Warnings:** Teen!chester, pre-series, slightly-AU, some foul language

**Disclaimer:** If I owned these characters, I would no longer be in student debt. I'm just borrowing them.

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_**3. I'll Always Be Your Brother

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Bobby wasn't surprised when the big black truck and the Impala pulled into his driveway. The neighborhood was quiet even on lazy end-of-summer days, and he heard the engines of both vehicles from when they were still a few blocks off. Bobby hadn't seen the Winchesters for a while, perhaps close to half a year, but his door was always open to them when they were in town. John usually called ahead, but not always.

Bobby sat on his front porch in his grease-stained coveralls with a beer in hand and watched the two vehicles pull to a stop behind his own car. John was out of his truck, duffle bag slung over his shoulder and head hung low within seconds.

"Hey, Bobby," John said as he approached the porch. His voice was soft, as it usually was when not playing drill sergeant to his boys. Bobby thought that he looked a bit more worn than the last time he'd seen him, but the hunt did that to people.

Bobby put his beer down on the step beside him and stood. "John," he said with a curt nod as they shook hands. John's hands were dry and callused from years of manual labor. His knuckles were slightly swollen and covered in rough, dirty scabs beginning to show the red of infection around their edge. If it had been one of the boys, Bobby would have said something about poor hygiene. But John was a grown man. If he wanted to dance with blood poisoning, that was his business.

"Listen, Bobby," John seemed to be grasping for words. He scratched the back of his neck and looked over his shoulder toward the Impala where neither of his boys had yet to emerge. "Is it okay if we stay here for the night?" When John turned back to him Bobby realized it was more than just the hunt causing dark circles under his friend's eyes.

"Of course. You know where everything is," Bobby said, and John looked more grateful than he should.

"Thanks," John said gruffly as he walked past Bobby and into the house.

The door closed quietly and Bobby sat back down on the porch to wait for Sam and Dean. He wondered happened. It was just another day in the neighborhood when Sam and John had a tiff. But for Dean to sit mutinously in the car along with his brother was something a bit more serious. Dean didn't go against John. It wasn't in the boy's programming.

Bobby grabbed his beer bottle and listened as the downstairs shower turned on to full blast. He had never realized the sound carried outside, and was suddenly grateful he didn't sing in the shower like some people did. Knowing his luck, the sound would travel across the neighborhood.

The driver's side door to the Impala opened as he took the last swig of his now-warm beer, and Bobby wondered if Dean had spent the entire time talking his brother out of whatever murderous plans Sam had developed for their father. But Dean was the only one to exit. Black duffle bag thrown over his shoulder, Dean closed the door to the Impala and locked it. No shadows moved in the car. Dean looked like he had been run down, backed over, and run over again. A ball of dread settled in Bobby's stomach as the young man approached.

"Hey Dean," Bobby tried, but Dean's eyes didn't climb off the ground. He wasn't limping or bruised or showing any sign of physical injury, but it didn't erase the irrational fear the absence of the youngest Winchester produced.

Bobby caught Dean's shoulder as he tried to walk by. "Where's Sam?"

"Gone," Dean said and his voice was rough, low and pain filled, and then he pushed by Bobby and entered the house.

Bobby didn't know whether to mourn, cry, or storm into the bathroom to rip John from the shower and force answers from him. Instead he ran a hand over his face and cursed at the dead brown grass of the front yard.

* * *

Dean passed out on the couch in front of the TV, and Bobby could see the little boy he had once been in his face. The windows were open, and a slight breeze blew through the house, the curtains rocking to the lullaby of crickets.

John took a sip of his beer and the bottle clinked when he put it on the table. "It's the first he's slept." John said as he looked at Dean, and there was unmistakable fondness in the slightly slurred voice. John loved his boys, would die for them. He was also an obsessive, stubborn egomaniac. The two sides of John personality couldn't have been more mismatched if he had tried.

Bobby still hadn't heard what happened. He still didn't know where Sam was; was hoping that the youngest Winchester was still alive. Half of him was terrified of the answer, the other half was rational. John was still partially functional and not completely drowning in a bottle. He was just angry and ready to rage at anything. It gave Bobby hope.

Silence stretched between them, and Bobby could tell by the way John was staring at the beer bottle that he was working up the courage to ask for a favor. "Listen Bobby," John started and stopped. Bobby waited. John glanced back at Dean and then met Bobby's gaze. "There's a hunt a few states over. Bringing Dean when he's like this would be a catastrophe waiting to happen." Bobby still didn't say anything, and John shrugged. "Do you mind if he stays here? Just for a little while. Just until he gets his head back in the game." Dean had been walking around like his heart was torn out, and part of Bobby couldn't imagine how long it would take for the boy to 'get his head back in the game.' But John was fidgety and a ball of walking anger. He wanted to be gone, off hunting because that moment of killing things, helping people gave him the control in life he craved.

"Dean can stay here as long as he wants," Bobby said, not mentioning that if Dean wanted to chase after John in the morning when he found his father was gone, Bobby wasn't going to stop him.

John's shoulders sagged in relief. He'd unburdened himself of Dean and whatever Dean's broken heart represented. Bobby wasn't about to let him off that easily. "John. What happened? Where's Sammy?" Bobby asked, and watched the other man's shoulders tense all over again.

John snorted and finished his beer with one last gulp. "Sam's gone," he said as he swallowed. "And he's not coming back." It was angry, bitter, and filled with the self-loathing John was so good at, that Dean was getting to be so good at.

"Gone where," Bobby asked incredulously.

John shook his head. "Doesn't matter. He's gone."

"Well, of course it matters," Bobby said, feeling the edge of his own temper hone. "He's your son, ain't he?"

"It was his choice. He left; abandoned his family when we needed him. He's gone." John stood and shoved his chair back into the table. He strode to the door, hefting his re-packed duffle over his shoulder. It took everything in Bobby not to storm over to the other hunter and knock him on his ass. "I'll be in touch," John said and was out the door.

Part of Bobby thought good riddance, another had a fleeting thought that John shouldn't be driving. Then he looked at Dean on his couch: exhausted, beaten, and heartbroken.

"Fuck him."

* * *

Bobby looked at his desk covered in newspapers, magazines and handwritten notes. There were no hunts that he could find in the nearby states. And Bobby was good at research. If there were something to find, he would have found it. Or he would have been called in by one of the other hunters. And if not called in, at least informed. So John had been lying when he'd said the hunt was close. Not that Bobby was surprised. He knew the other hunter had just wanted to dispose of Dean who was only serving to remind John of his failure with Sam.

Bobby sighed as another gun shot rang out like a scream in the quiet of the late August day. Dean hadn't said anything after finding out John had left, and Bobby didn't know where the other Hunter had gone. He had spent most of the morning listening to Dean pace back and forth from the kitchen to the living room or up and down the hall. Not being able to take the thunk-thunk-thunk of Dean's obsessive circuits, Bobby had dragged the young man outback, stocked him up on guns, ammunition, tin cans and targets and let him be. Dean didn't know how to talk when he was hurt, so he let the gun scream for him.

Bobby hadn't been told what happened or where Sam was, but he had a terrible hunch he knew. He was praying he was wrong, that he wouldn't be pulled into the middle of this Winchester family war. But he was pretty sure he was right.

Sliding his desk chair back, he opened up the middle desk drawer. With one sweep of his hands, he gathered all the papers within and deposited them on the desk before carefully pulling the drawer out to access the hidden compartment in the bottom. There wasn't much there: a picture of his wife on their wedding day, the perfect skipping stone as dubbed by a 5-year-old Sam, a vial of holy water, a single silver bullet, a long werewolf claw gifted to him from a 12-year-old Dean, and a sealed envelope. Bobby barely spared a glance at the other items as he pulled out the white envelope and replaced the draw in the desk.

There hadn't been a gunshot in a while, and Bobby figured Dean had probably run out of ammo for the pistol. As the birdsong hesitantly started back up, he wondered which weapon would come next. Hope he doesn't fire all the expensive rounds, he thought idly as he looked at the envelope in his hands.

Seven months before, right before they had left, Sam had pulled Bobby to the side and handed him the envelope. The boy was thin bordering on scrawny with hair that fell into his eyes when he refused to look up from the floor. "You'll know when to open it," he'd said quietly, his eyes never leaving the white envelope in Bobby's hands. Bobby thought that maybe Sam was still debating something, wondered if he just imagined the shaking of the young man's hands as he wiped them on his jeans and shifted from foot to foot. And then Dean was shouting for Sammy to move his princess ass and the moment to ask was over. Sam threw a look and a questionable finger at his brother, causing the older sibling to laugh and turn up the Impala's radio. Then Sam had given him a quick, rough hug, and said "Thank you, Bobby," as if he'd never see the older man again. Bobby was left dumbfounded on his own porch as Sam jogged away.

If Bobby had been a smart man, he would have opened the envelope that day. But he wasn't a smart man and had never claimed to be. But he was faithful. So he had tucked the envelope away in the safest place he could think of, partially hoping he would never find out what the contents were.

Now the two oldest Winchesters had showed up on his door Sammy-less and heart sore, and Bobby couldn't help but marvel that Sam was right: he did know that it was time to open the envelope.

Gunshot again screamed through the birdsong, this one somehow heavier, deeper, silencing the nature for miles around. Bobby recognized it as the old hunting rifle he barely ever used. It was in poor repair, and he was partially surprised it still worked.

Sliding a small knife carefully along the creased edge, the envelope opened easily. Inside it was a smaller sealed stationary envelope and a yellow post-it note. On one side of the post-it note was an address written in Sam's curling, swirling handwriting. The address was in Palo Alto, California. On the flip side of the paper were the words: _Let me know where they are. _The envelope had Dean's name on it.

Bobby was never taking another letter from Sam.

Ever.

* * *

One week. One week and no sign of John. He wasn't even answering his phone. The Impala sat collecting dust in the driveway, and Dean still walked around like half his heart was missing. Bobby had run out of cheap rounds and undented cans, and Dean wasn't about to leave Bobby's of his own accord. He kept saying he was waiting for his father, like a good son.

For the past few days, Dean had planted himself in front of the TV, 5 o'clock shadow turning into a beard. Bobby was starting to think that Dean's imprint would be in the couch cushions forever. John was going to buy him a new sofa, Bobby decided; something plush and upholstered in black leather.

Jerry Springer was on air again, and Bobby wondered just how many episodes were shown in one day. Too many to be healthy, surely. He groaned and rolled his eyes at the TV screen, but Dean was captivated.

Bobby stood and stretched. "Alright, enough of this," he muttered. He turned off the TV and stood in front of Dean. It was early evening, just barely twilight, and without the light of the television the two men were not more than murky shadows in the dying light. Bobby held a hand out to the younger man, ready to pull him from the couch.

Dean stared at him incredulously. "I was watching that."

"You don't need to lose any more of the brains you got," Bobby said, not budging. "I'm afraid you're going to become part of my couch and then I'll be stuck watching bad daytime TV for the rest of my life."

"Hey. You leave Days of Our Lives out of this." Dean said.

Bobby rolled his eyes and this time Dean let himself be pulled to his feet and led to the kitchen. Bobby pushed him down into one of the chairs before swiping a slightly dusty bottle of scotch from the top shelf of the cabinet along with two small glasses. Bobby poured himself one and then Dean another. He pushed Dean's glass into his hand with a stern look.

"Drink." He said.

After clinking glasses with Bobby in an unspoken salutation, Dean did. They drank in silence together, listening to the crickets out the open windows, the frogs singing some place in the woods beyond the junk yard. When Dean's glass was empty, Bobby filled it back up and gave the command again: drink. It was a short time that stretched into eternity. Gray twilight became full dark, and they both sat drinking in the kitchen without turning on any of the lights. Bobby thought it was better this way, no need to shed too much light on the darkness slinking around inside Dean's head and heart.

Dean's eyes were glassy and Bobby could feel his own head spinning before he finally got around to talking. "Is acting like Sam's dead helping you, Dean?"

Dean froze, framed in blue moonlight shining in from the window, the glass half way to his lips. His eyes didn't widen, but his jaw clenched. "What?"

Bobby clinked his glass onto the countertop and repeated himself: "Is acting like Sam's dead helping you?"

Dean's jaw clenched again and Bobby wondered if the other man would deck him. "He left us. In this family, that's as good as dead." It sounded as if it were straight out of John's mouth, Dean nothing more than an elaborate puppet.

"Us, Dean?" Bobby said with every drop of skepticism in him and raised eyebrows.

Dean sniffed and looked away, out the window, as if the moon held better answers. "Yeah. Me and Dad."

"And where is your Daddy?" Bobby asked very slowly, letting each work drop heavily into the cricket-song filled air.

Dean's face tightened down into a scowl. He was as stubborn as John. "He's working, he'll be back. He always comes back." To be patched up, drink himself stupid, or move everything he owned to another godforsaken town. Bobby didn't say these things. He didn't have to. They were in the air without being vocalized.

Bobby filled his own glass again then topped off Deans. "And Sam won't?" He asked, voice light . Dean just shook his head, still looking out the window. "Why wouldn't he?"

"Because Dad…" Dean's voice trailed off, his eyes distant as if he was reliving his worst nightmare.

"What?" Bobby pushed, not really wanting to know but wanting Dean to vocalize the answer, as if the memory and idea of it were poison waiting to come out.

Dean turned back to him then, met his gaze. The moonlight and shadows smoothed out the hardness manhood had brought him, and Bobby thought for a moment that he was staring at the over-protective and frightened boy he had first met years before. Dean's voice was quiet when it came, as if he hadn't yet dared voice the words. "Dad said that if Sam left, he couldn't come back. He wasn't part of this family."

Bobby wanted to shoot rock salt into his friends backside. Instead he clenched his teeth, carefully placed his glass on the counter before it broke in his grip, and let out a deep breath. He let the sounds of the night fill the air for a moment as he considered how to respond. Finally, he pulled up a chair opposite Dean, his eyes momentarily noticing that the whole interior of his house seemed to be faintly glowing blue.

He spoke slowly, carefully, making sure he had Dean's whole attention for each syllable. "And when was the last time Sam listened to anything your daddy said?"

Dean looked momentarily stricken, but Bobby knew he had chosen the right words. It was better to put the defiance Bobby was pushing Dean toward onto Sam. Sam was the defiant son, Sam was the one who talked back, and fought, and left. Sam, for some unknown reason, could be rebellious. Dean wasn't programmed to not follow every instruction uttered by his father. He'd self-destruct if he thought of himself as something other than John's perfect soldier.

Out of his pocket, Bobby pulled the yellow post-it note. He had given the letter to Dean earlier, but not the address. Dean hadn't been ready to know what to do with it yet. Now, Bobby thought, he was as close as he was going to get. He handed it to Dean, the swirling hand-writing face-up: _Let me know where they are._

Dean looked at it, then at the address on the back, as if it were pure gold. Or an end to all the madness. Out of his own pocket, Dean pulled a crumpled piece of stationary paper, and held it beside the note. Both notes had the same curling, bubbly lettering. Bobby read the stationary paper over Dean's shoulder: _I'll always be your brother._

Sometimes, Bobby thought perhaps Sam was psychic, hoped Sam was psychic; because a 17 year old orchestrating so much to coincide was a little frightening in its brilliance. Bobby also found himself hoping that there was nothing supernatural to it. That Sam just knew his brother well enough to know what he'd need to hear, knew his father well enough to suspect that John would abjure him in his anger.

"So, let me ask this again," Bobby said slowly, "Sam won't be back?"

* * *

When Bobby woke up the next morning, the Impala was gone and his couch was empty. There was still-warm coffee on the kitchen table, and the middle cushion on the couch sank in more than the others. John still wouldn't answer his phone, but Bobby left him a simple message that John probably wouldn't appreciate until much, much later.

"You're welcome, you stubborn bastard."

* * *

**Fin**

* * *

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